


Fabric

by blythechild



Series: Gift Stories 2013 [2]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Denial, Drabble, Fantasizing, M/M, Romantic Friendship, Touch-Starved, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-06
Updated: 2014-05-06
Packaged: 2018-01-23 19:29:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1576913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blythechild/pseuds/blythechild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alone in his bed, Reese likes to imagine what lies beneath all of Finch's layers.</p><p> </p><p>This is a work of fanfiction and as such I do not claim ownership over the characters herein. It was created as a personal entertainment. This story contains suggestive themes and shouldn't be read by those under 18.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fabric

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Draycevixen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draycevixen/gifts).



> For Draycevixen from her prompt on comment_fic on Livejournal.

Alone in his bed, Reese likes to imagine what lies beneath all of Finch's layers. He closes his eyes and lets his senses take him somewhere else. 

He feels the worsted wool jacket outlining Finch's shoulders _just so_ , holding him together like armour. Reese imagines slipping his hands inside that jacket, his knuckles flirting with the silk lining as he outlines the seams of Finch's vest. Again, it fits just so - John wonders how Finch manages a deep breath whilst so securely cocooned in such tailored expense. The vest is patterned; he feels the raised embroidery catch on his callused fingers. He also notices the rise and fall of Harold’s chest, but this is his imagination so he cannot know for certain how fast the breathing has become. If he focuses on that detail for too long, doubts seep in and the fantasy falls apart, and this fantasy is too important to his well being to allow that to happen. He moves on.

The buttons are smooth and sure in his grip, and the almost imperceptible pop that they make as he pushes them through their eyelets is so satisfying that he has to take a moment to remember to breathe and settle himself. He draws it out – in his mind, he is staring at his work and he imagines Harold watching his progress as well in silence. Some nights he loves this part so much that he just imagines the vest with endless buttons and he falls asleep without a memory of ever coming to the end of them. 

Once the vest is beaten, his hands brush it aside along with the jacket to the next guardian. The Egyptian cotton shirt is both warm and cool to the touch. He’s thrilled to know that the warmth is _Harold_ – he’s so close now that he is imagining that warmth against his own and wonders if the heat alone would be enough to satisfy him. Some nights he imagines that it would be. He pulls at Finch’s tie. He doesn’t like ties – doesn’t approve of them either as symbols of civility or as unwitting weapons. He wishes that he could convince Harold to give them up. He tosses it aside and is faced with more buttons, which calms him. They are smaller and he must focus because his worker’s hands make their negotiation awkward. They hold to their master with the barest of authority – triple looped silk thread, spun, twisted, and then hand sewn for extra strength. They assert their bespoke nobility in spite of him – he could rip them free but it never crosses his mind. It would be unspeakably rude. 

He pulls the shirt slowly upward and listens as it slips against Finch’s skin and the cinch of his belt. He frees the tails with the crisp finality of ripped paper and goes to work on the last of the buttons. Under this is what he craves, but every time he gets to this part it changes. He has knowledge of Finch through his clothes, his tastes, the things that he keeps around him, but Finch himself – his physical self – is as indistinct as fog. Reese doesn’t know what he’ll find and so his imagination provides him with a multiplicity that his practical mind despises. He wants _to know_.

This time his hands skim over the skin that has kept itself from view under three layers of defence. The dress shirt drapes over his hands as they flatten against Finch’s abdomen, obscuring his view. Now he can _feel_ Finch’s breathing – it’s faster. How could it not be? Reese knows that Harold is older, broken, and built around his intellect, not his body, but when he imagines feeling that heat for the first time, he doesn’t care about what it looks like. Perhaps that’s part of the fantasy too. Some nights he closes his eyes in his imagination and just curls into the warmth, pressing his cheek against the chest that rises and falls beneath him. It’s enough to fall into that protection for a while – protection that he has to peel away before it can shelter him as well. 

Some nights, he imagines that hands fall into his hair as he rests, listening to another man breath.

“John…”

And that’s what his fantasy is about as he drifts into unconsciousness. He lays himself down, lays himself open, and rests fully clothed.


End file.
